


Everything Dies

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dahl went down with the Hunter-Gratzner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Dies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedibuttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



When Dahl was seven, her pet cat died. 

"Everything dies, sweetheart," her father said. "It's just a part of life." 

They buried the cat in the yard, under a tree as old as their colony. She cried; he dried her tears with his handkerchief and then took her inside for dinner. 

When Dahl was seventeen, her parents died. 

"Everything dies," she told the minister. "It's just a part of life." 

He looked at her strangely as they buried the two caskets in the local cemetery. She didn't cry. 

Six months later, she joined the military. She never went home again. 

\---

The Army suited her. 

Basic was childsplay, her classmates way behind; she moved fast, hit hard, smart and highly motivated. After, she made one hell of a soldier. 

Eighteen months: spec-ops selected her for sniper school. She was icy calm and one hell of a shot. Her 2IC was handsy, harmless but irritating. 

"Got it in you to kill a man, corporal?" her CO asked. 

"Everything dies, sir."

He nodded. Right answer, but she never took a shot. 

Her 2IC got handsier; she beat him half to death. No trial, just a coverup. 

She left, and she never went back. 

\---

When Johns offered her the job, she had a knife to his son's throat. 

"It's a good living," he said. "Room, board and gear included. We could use someone with your skills." 

"Screw you," she said, knife at Billy's throat. He swallowed. He bled. "I'm not a merc."

"Sure, right now you're a drunk in a bar fight. You wanna graduate to murder or take a paying job?"

He was right. She handed him the knife. 

"She wouldn't've done it," Billy said. They all knew that was bullshit. 

She'd've killed Billy in a heartbeat. And that's why Johns hired her. 

\---

They worked with military precision. 

Their gear was better than she'd ever had and she liked the uniform. The whole thing was like the Army, except when assholes got grabby she could fuck them up and keep her job. 

The first few ops they had her hang back; she resented it but it was a learning curve, familiar enough to be confusing. Then they gave her a rifle and had her take the shot. 

Her instructors had said it'd be different when she shot a man and not a paper target. 

She squeezed the trigger. It wasn't different at all. 

\---

Two years in, her second solo op, there was a guy she couldn't catch. It pissed her off. He wasn't good, just lucky.

She chased him through space for weeks with no luck. Then she punched a wall, broke her hand, and did the smart thing: she called backup. They got him to slam inside a week. The way the boss looked at her, kinda proud, she guessed the whole op had been a lesson. 

Two years later, Billy's turn. It pissed him off when she caught the guy, but it saved him from himself. 

The guy: Richard B. Riddick. 

\---

The first thing she did when the Hunter-Gratzner crashed was shoot Riddick in the head. The bounty wasn't worth the risk. 

The second thing she did was rally the survivors, starting with the pilot. Fry was shaky, so Dahl pressed. 

"I was going to dump the passengers," Fry said, ashamed. 

"Everything dies," Dahl replied. Fry nodded. She understood.

When the suns went dark and the deaths racked up, they knew it wasn't Riddick. Just two people left that place alive, in a jury-rigged ship: Dahl and Carolyn Fry. 

Dahl was as relieved for Fry as for herself. She didn't understand. 

\---

The following year, they met again. Dahl called it coincidence; Fry laughed and called it fate. 

In a bar between ops, Fry joined them at the table. Dahl sighed and drank as Billy flirted, but every now and then their gazes met. Dahl understood attraction. Billy sometimes didn't.

At the door when Dahl kissed her goodbye, Fry looked surprised by didn't say stop: the fingers in her hair said keep on going. Dahl hadn't meant to do it, but she hadn't not.

Fry stayed the night skin on skin in Dahl's bed. In the morning, they went their separate ways.

\---

Boss Johns' right hand man died three years later. He picked her to take his place and put an extra pip onto her collar just to seal the deal. She was proud. He was prouder. 

Billy fucked himself up on morphine three months after that. They sent him to rehab; he got help, then he came back. He was still the old Billy, the same obnoxious flirt, and they argued just like siblings might. When some shitty bounty shot him, the others took his death hard. 

_Everything dies_ , Dahl thought. And maybe once that thought had been comforting. It wasn't.

\---

"I don't even know your first name," Fry said when they met again, someplace where it always rained. 

"I didn't tell you," Dahl replied, then ducked her tongue between Fry's thighs. She made Fry gasp. She didn't ask again.

Fry said she was still a pilot, freight, with shitty pay and shitty hours. She asked if Dahl still hunted criminals and Dahl said _I'm a merc, not a bounty hunter_ , like the distinction made a difference. 

"Come fly for us," Dahl said. She hadn't meant to, but she hadn't not.

She hadn't realised she'd wanted it till Fry said yes.

\---

She taught Fry how to fight, how to shoot, how to spot for her when she got out her rifle. She didn't know much else. And then, at night, they went to bed together. 

"Do you remember what happened when the suns went dark?" Fry asked one night as they floated through space.

"I saved your life," Dahl replied. 

Fry grinned. "I'm going to thank you again." 

_Everything dies_ , Dahl thought, as Fry traced patterns on her skin. But for years she'd forgotten what came next.

Everything dies: it's just a part of life. 

She had some living to do.


End file.
